


Promises Kept

by MistoKitt



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 22:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistoKitt/pseuds/MistoKitt
Summary: It was a refuge of sorts. The one place in the city where he didn't have to pretend that everything was going to be all right. The one place where he could let the hollow ache that constantly sat in his chest expand to fully eclipse him.





	Promises Kept

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in April 2007 and posted to LJ and Wraithbait. Did some minor edits upon importing, but otherwise left the story as originally written over 11 years ago. Am currently trying not to hyperventilate about that time calculation.

The city always seemed to glow when the people who lived within her walls threw a celebration. A little brighter, a little more alive even. It seemed to John that Atlantis had a way of sensing moods, and when almost the entire population was in a good one, she celebrated with them.

  
Sheppard tried not to view it as a betrayal.  
  
It certainly wasn't the fault of Atlantis, nor anyone else on the expedition team. They had every right to celebrate, and a desperate need to find even the smallest piece of joy to cling to. Being lucky enough to be alive to see the turn of a new Earth decade seemed as good a reason as any, and Sheppard knew that he shouldn't begrudge his people the chance to find a little hope and happiness in that. He just wished that at least the city would side with him and see it all for what it was. Not a miracle that they'd all made it this far and this long, but a time to mourn for all those that had been lost along the way.  
  
John slammed his hands against the balcony railing and turned away from the sight of the ocean. There was no point in sulking by himself in a remote corner of the city. It certainly didn't make him feel any better. He couldn't, however, bring himself to smile and laugh with the rest of them. He couldn't pretend that everything was perfect and happy. Not today.  
  
As he walked through the halls of Atlantis, the city opened doors for him quickly, and sometimes far in advance of him even reaching them. The lights brightened in the hallways and rooms that he walked through. She wanted him to be happy, and she wanted him to join in the festivities. Sheppard had long ago stopped trying to pretend that the city didn't have a mind of her own on some level. She wanted to see him pleased and at ease. Maybe she even wanted to comfort him in some way.  
  
"Stop. Just stop it!" He hissed out, as another door opened before he was even near it. "Let me have this, please."  
  
He veered to the left and took the long way around to the transporter. Was it too much to ask that he be allowed to wallow in grief once in a while? Too much to want just a moment to himself where he didn't have to keep the mask of belief and hope on his face?  
  
He punched his destination into the transporter, a little more harshly than was probably necessary, and was whisked away in a flash of light.  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
The old living quarters had long since been abandoned. Too small, too closely packed, and maybe too many bad memories for the few original expedition members left. First they'd begun assigning some of the newer transfers to the larger quarters farther out in the city. Closer to whatever labs or training facilities they would be working with. Eventually those left in the old section began packing up and moving out to the new sections as well. Quietly and with little fanfare. Nobody talked about it, they just left. Sheppard was the last to leave, and even that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Lorne and Teyla giving him gentle reminders of how much easier it would be to live in the larger quarters just off the East Pier. They had worried about him being alone with all the memories that came with this place. John thought it was fitting, that he should be alone with the ghosts in this place. His own personal burden, as if he didn't already have enough.  
  
He knew where he was headed without any conscious thought. It was inevitable that he end up here. Days like this always seemed to end up here. It was the one room that still held all the personal belongings of its former occupant. The one room that Sheppard hadn't allowed to be cleared out. Oh, they all thought it had been emptied long ago. Assumed that John had been the one to do it, and that everything had been neatly packaged and shipped back to Earth. If any of them knew that Sheppard came here some days, sat on the bed and held the picture frames or brushed his hands across the dusty computers, none of them said anything. It was John's place now, though he had come here less and less frequently in the last year.  
  
It was a refuge of sorts. The one place in the city where he didn't have to pretend that everything was going to be all right. The one place where he could let the hollow ache that constantly sat in his chest expand to fully eclipse him. The one place that even Atlantis would keep the lights dim for him, in deference to the man that used to live here maybe, sharing his grief.  
  
John picked up the framed picture of a young man cradling a cat in his arms, and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran his fingers down the edge of the frame as he stared at the picture without really seeing it. "You promised I wouldn't have to do this alone," John whispered, "Where are you?"  
  
Nobody answered. Nobody ever did.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As Sheppard slipped out into the hallway of the old living section, the lights stayed dim for him. Like Atlantis was keeping his secrets.  
  
"How long has it been now, John?" Teyla said from the shadows.  
  
"Jesus Christ!" Sheppard yelped, jumping back to slam up against the wall behind him. "What are you trying to do? Give me a stroke?"  
  
Teyla smiled and emerged from the corner she had been waiting in. "How long John?"  
  
John didn't bother to feign innocence. "Two years, eight months, and sixteen days."  
  
"And how much of that time have you spent coming here in secret?"  
  
Sheppard frowned at her. "Two years, eight months, and eight days. Give or take an hour." It would have been longer, but John had spent that first week in the infirmary. "If we're playing the How Long game, how long have you known?"  
  
Teyla smiled at him, but there was no joy in it. "A while." She moved closer to him, and John would have backed up, but the wall prevented any retreat. "It isn't healthy. Clinging to him like this."  
  
"You've been talking to Kate again," John said, trying out a smile that he was certain looked forced.  
  
Teyla didn't deny it. She didn't say anything actually. She slipped past him and palmed open the door.  
  
"Don't!" John reached out to stop her, and realized as he did that there was no good reason to prevent her from entering the room. She knew the secret now, she might as well know all of it.  
  
Teyla never even paused. She walked into the room, and John was bound to follow her, though there was no explanation he could offer that wouldn't make him sound like he'd totally cracked.  
  
Teyla sighed as she wandered around the small room, letting her fingers trail over a picture or book. She didn't say anything.  
  
"He's coming back," John regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth. Teyla was his friend, his teammate. Out of anyone, she ought to understand. She had understood in the beginning. She'd even stuck with him long after everyone else had given up hope, but it had been too long now. She would report him to Kate, or worse, to Earth. They'd yank him out of Atlantis so fast he'd probably leave his shoes behind.  
  
Teyla looked up at him, and John reluctantly met her gaze. He'd been expecting pity, or maybe even anger. What he saw was closer to hope and desire. A wish to believe him, displayed so clearly.  
  
"We all miss him John. Those of us that knew him well will never stop missing him."  
  
"This isn't just some misplaced anguish or regret." John folded his arms across his chest and raised his chin. "Teyla, I know he's still out there somewhere."  
  
He knew that she wanted to ask him what made him so certain. He could see it on her face and in the way she stood. She wanted to believe, even after all this time, she wanted to hope. She didn't ask, and maybe that was better, because if she didn't ask then she could continue to believe him. If he told her that it was all based on a simple promise made years ago, he doubted even she could continue to believe him.  
  
~~~~~~~~~  
  
John had always assumed that he would be the one to find him. He'd always figured that the universe had to have at least a little bit of kindness left in it, and it would allow him to be the one to open the gate and welcome his friend home. John hadn't counted on the fact that the universe tended to be ruled by irony.  
  
As it turned out, John was in the middle of several delirious days in the infirmary, courtesy of a new lab technician and a piece of ancient technology that had been spliced together wrong, when it happened. He didn't even get the satisfaction of offering anyone a good old-fashioned "I told you so," because it was almost old news by the time he'd come out of the delirium.  
  
John spent his first lucid day trying to convince the doctors that he was still crazy and seeing things. The doctors spent the day trying to convince him that he was actually just fine. Rodney spent the day calling him names under his breath and tapping at a laptop in the bed next to John's.  
  
When John woke up the next day, feeling just as coherent as the day before, and found Rodney still in the next bed, he allowed himself to hyperventilate for a full two minutes.  
  
"You're real," he finally said.  
  
"I'm sleeping," Rodney responded without bothering to open his eyes.  
  
"You're back."  
  
"You're annoying," Rodney snapped, "and I don't feel like playing this game right now. Sleeping. As in resting and recuperating."  
  
"Rodney," John whispered, wanting desperately to get off his own bed so he could reach his friend and touch him. Feel for himself that this wasn't just a dream gone horribly wrong.  
  
"You were a lot less irritating when you were babbling incoherently." Rodney sighed and finally opened his eyes, rolling to face John.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As it turned out, Rodney hadn't been going through any unspeakable horrors during the time he had been missing. In fact, according to him, he hadn't even really been missing. At least not for very long.  
  
The dart that had scooped him up had been damaged, probably by them, right before it went through the gate. It had crashed on some random uninhabited planet, and laid there for all this time. Luck had it that the Wraith pilot had died on impact, the self destruct had never been triggered, and the homing beacon had malfunctioned. It was a sheer coincidence that anyone from their expedition happened to go to that planet and find the dart. Otherwise, Rodney could have easily spent the next millennia stuck in the dart's buffer, with no one the wiser.  
  
Rodney was apparently somewhat pissed off that they hadn't found him earlier. He was also less than happy that he'd missed out on three years of research. Other than that, he didn't seem all that upset.  
  
Of course, he hadn't just spent the last three years being the only person clinging to the belief that his best friend was still alive, while everyone else had said their goodbyes ages ago. John thought that he might be a little bitter about that.  
  
"What I don't understand is why you're just taking this all in stride," John said from the door to Rodney's room.  
  
"There's not that much to take in really," Rodney said, as he looked around his room for something or another, "I mean, I didn't miss out on all that many breakthroughs, which isn't all that surprising since you didn't have me here to make them. We're still at war with the Wraith, we're still in Atlantis, and you're still a suicidal maniac who steps in front of rogue Ancient technology at any given opportunity. Granted, there are a few faces that seem to be missing." Rodney stopped there, and the look on his face said it all. There had been losses in the last three years, losses that John still had trouble dealing with, and he'd actually seen them occur. He couldn't even begin to imagine stepping through the gate tomorrow to find out that so many friends were suddenly gone. Dead and mourned for years ago.  
  
"If everybody has moved quarters to the larger sections of the city, why is all my stuff still here in this hole?" Rodney asked, picking up a picture from his desk. "For that matter, from what I've been told I was declared dead. Why is my stuff even still here?"  
  
John snatched back the picture and put it back on the desk, exactly where it had been. "Well... I mean..." John stopped. How could he possibly explain any of it? How could he explain that he'd been waiting for Rodney to return, and thinking this whole time that as soon as McKay was back everything could just go back to the way it had been before? John turned and stormed from the room before Rodney could notice that he was shaking.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"You really are insane. You know that, right?" Rodney said from the open door to the Jumper Bay.  
  
John didn't bother to respond.  
  
"No, seriously," Rodney said, "You not only kept all of my stuff. You kept it in exactly the same place it was when I left that morning. You lied and filed it as shipped back to Earth, didn't you?"  
  
John moved a wire and continued with the diagnostic of PuddleJumper two.  
  
"Oh my god, you did." Rodney finally moved from the door and strode over to where John was working. "Did you even tell Jeannie that I was missing?"  
  
"Of course I did, I'm not a complete asshole!" John snapped.  
  
Rodney looked momentarily apologetic. "Look, I realize that it was tough, me being gone for so long and all."  
  
"Tough?" John spun to face McKay. "Are you serious? You were dead Rodney. Everybody knew it. Everybody believed it. For three years I was the only one in two galaxies that even thought it was possible that you were out there. I waited for three-fucking-years for you to come home. And you realize that it was 'tough'?" John threw his tablet down a little harder than was absolutely necessary. "I can't do this," he said, turning toward the door to the bay.  
  
Rodney reached out and snagged his arm. "Why?" he whispered.  
  
John could actually feel himself turning purple with anger. "Because this is fucking hard okay? Because, even through I kept it all and told myself you'd be back, I was starting to think that maybe I was a little crazy. Because now you are back and you are fine, and you didn't even know you were supposed to be dead for three years. You didn't even know that it had been three years!" John was yelling by the end.  
  
"No," Rodney said, just as quietly, "I meant, why did you keep it all. Why did you wait?"  
  
John let out a moan that he refused to believe was a sob, and suddenly he was wrapped around McKay. Touching him for the first time since this had all started. Pulling him close and enveloping him, as if to prevent him from ever leaving again. "Because you promised," John whispered in his ear, voice broken with what were definitely tears, "You promised I wouldn't have to do this alone, goddammit."  
  
And finally, finally Rodney's arms came up and he was holding John just as tight. Holding John as if he hadn't seen him in three years either.  
  
"I meant it," Rodney whispered back, voice just as broken.  
  
And maybe, just maybe, it felt like it had been that long for Rodney too.


End file.
